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mc cafe commercial and race

i've seen this commercial a lot lately, and somewhere in there i started to really think about the commercial and what i was seeing. the subtle things. the little things. maybe it's because i teach sociology. maybe it's something else. i don't know. maybe i'm seeing things that aren't there, or blowing things out of proportion. what i see in this commercial is a common theme in a lot of movies.

let me throw this out there: we see an african american woman waiting at the bus stop, dissatisfied. next, we see a caucasian male show up with the mc cafe and it's all good for him. cut scene, now we have the african american woman on the bus, all disjointed. who's satisfied? it's a white woman with a mc cafe. scene three, we again have the african american woman toiling away in her cubicle. thankfully, the caucasians arrive, bringing her a mc cafe, saving her day.

it's not overt racism. i don't think the makers of the commercial intended it. but, in some ways it's the same message that gets put out into the media. it's an especially common plot in movies: the lives of minorities are messed up and the whites bring the answer to the problem.

it's very subtle in the commercial. and maybe that makes it worse.

or maybe it really isn't there and i'm reading too much into a commercial. https://sites.google.com/site/mayuradocs/PinIt.png